Song of Sorcery

By Elizabeth Ann Scarborough and TBD

A portentous song sparks an unlikely adventure in this lighthearted contemporary fantasy by the Nebula Award–winning author of The Healer’s War.

Colin Songsmith sings a song to an old witch who takes an unlikely revenge. The witch’s granddaughter rescues him from the dire threat of being eaten alive by the cat. She hears

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gypsy Shadow Publishing
• Release date: Mar 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781619505162

Book preview

Contents

Copyright Page

Excerpt and Comment

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Chapter One

Chapter Five

Chapter Ten

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-Two

About the Author

Song of Sorcery

by

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough

All rights reserved

Copyright © 1982 by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (Kacsur)

Cover Art Copyright © 2012, Karen Gillmore

Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

Lockhart, TX

www.gypsyshadow.com

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

ISBN: 978-1-61950-516-2

Published in the United States of America

First GSP eBook Edition: November 1, 2019

One Thing After Another

A passing log swept the boat out from under Maggie, and she dropped with a shocking splash into the river, the rope slipping agonizingly in her hands. Suddenly her body was tossing and turning with the torrent.

Then she felt Colin’s arm about her waist. Got you! he yelled above the river, nearly breaking his own hold on the rope with the shock of her added weight. Grab on now! Flinging her arm wildly in his direction, she hooked her elbow about his neck, nearly throttling him.

When at last they reached shore, and Maggie had clambered out of the water onto the bank, she looked up to see a large green-and-turquoise dragon that murmured to herself: Aha! Dinner is served.

"The word for Song of Sorcery is delicious!"

—Isaac Asimov’s SF Magazine

Dedication

For Betty, Don, Monte, and Gladys Scarborough and Richard Gridley Kacsur and the pets who are my family. And for Dr. Martha Kowalski, who checked her own laboratory work while her office nurse was fighting dragons. Also for Jeannie Jett, Marion Watts, Allen Damron and Dr. Jeff Trilling, who not only believe in fantastic beasties and awesome enchantments, but believe in me as well.

Acknowledgement

The song of sorcery quoted by Colin (and added to by him) is a compilation of several different versions of The Gypsie Laddie, Whistling Gypsy O, or Gypsy Davey, a popular folk ballad believed to date from the 1600s. I am deeply grateful to Dover Books for reprinting The English and Scottish Popular Ballads collection, edited by Francis James Child, from whom the lyrics I’ve used in Song of Sorcery have been gleaned, and also to the many wonderful performers of folk music whose artistic stewardship of these old songs has been a continuing source of inspiration. I owe particular thanks in this respect to my good friend Allen Damron.

1

If it hadn’t been for Maggie’s magic, the eggs would have tumbled from the basket and shattered when the panting barmaid careened into her. The automatic gathering spell barely had time, as it was, to snatch the eggs into the container before they were spilled back out again as the distraught young woman began tugging at Maggie’s sleeve.

Come! Be quick now! Your old Granny’s at it again!

Be careful! Maggie scrambled to keep her eggs from breaking, trying at the same time to snatch her sleeve from the girl’s grasp. What do you mean?

Some poor young minstrel was singing a song, and just like that she starts ravin’ and rantin’ and changes him into a wee birdie, and commenced chasin’ him and callin’ on her great cat to come eat him up! Oooooh, I hears the cat now—do be quick! This time she had no occasion to do further snatching at the sleeve, but slipped instead on the forgotten trail of egg mess left in Maggie’s wake as she galloped across the barnyard and through the tavern’s back door.

Wood clattered on stone and fist on flesh as the patrons of the tavern rudely competed for the front exit, tripping on overturned chairs and trampling table linens underfoot in their haste to be gone. Only three of the most dedicated customers remained at their table, placidly sipping their brew, watching the commotion with far less interest than they watched the level in their flagons.

Granny’s braid was switching faster than the tail of a cow swatting blowflies as she ran back and forth. She showed surprising agility for one of her age, and for all her leaping about was not too out of breath to utter a constant stream of hearty and imaginative curses. With the grace of a girl, she bounded over an upturned bench and then to the top of a table, whacking the rafter above it with furious blows of her broom.

Come down from there this instant, you squawking horror, and take what’s coming to you! Granny demanded, black eyes snapping, and body rocking with the fury of her attack. Ching! she hollered back over her shoulder. Ching! Here, kitty. Come to breakfast!

It was fortunate for the mockingbird that Maggie saw him dive under the table to escape the broom before the cat spotted him. Just as the cat gathered himself for a pounce on the low-flying bird, Maggie launched herself in a soaring leap and managed to catch the cat in mid-pounce, retaining her grip on him as they landed with a whoof just short of the table.

Struggling for the breath their abrupt landing knocked from her, Maggie clasped the cat tighter as he squirmed to escape. Grandma, you stop that right now! she panted with all the authority she could muster from her red-faced, spraddle-legged position on the floor.

I will not! the old lady snapped, taking another swing at the bird as it landed safely back in the rafter above the table. No two-bit traveling tinhorn is going to gargle such filth in MY tavern about MY in-laws and get away with it. She jumped down from the table, looking for another vantage point from which to launch her attack.

Whoever he is, Gran, change him back, Maggie insisted, setting the cat free now that the bird was out of reach on the rafter, quivering in its feathers at the slit-eyed looks it was receiving from both broom-wielding elderly matron and black-and-white-spotted cat.

The old lady glared at her granddaughter and primly adjusted her attire, tucking her braid back into its pin. I most certainly will not.

You most certainly will, Maggie insisted, noting with some consternation the set of her grandmother’s chin and the anthracite glitter of her eyes. Grandma, whatever he’s done, it’s for Dad to dispense justice—it just isn’t the thing these days to go converting people into supper for one’s cat just because they displease one. What will the neighbors think of us? It isn’t respectable.

The old lady made a rude noise. "As if I cared about that. But all right, dear. Only wait until you hear what he did—wait ’til your father hears! That birdbrain will wish Ching had made a meal of him before Sir William’s done with him!"

"But I didn’t write the tune, protested the man who materialized in place of the mockingbird as Gran snapped the release ritual from her fingers. His arms and legs clung to the rafter for dear life. Please, somebody get me a ladder."

It isn’t that high, snorted Grandma contemptuously. Ching can jump it from this table.

One of you men come help me with this thing, Maggie said, taking hold of one end of a long bench. A member of the stalwart society who’d remained at his station during the melee, being between pints, sauntered over and lifted the opposite end of the bench, and together they stood it on the table so that the former mockingbird could use it to descend.

Now then, sir. Maggie stood with hands on hips as the stranger dusted himself off. You have upset my grandmother terribly, and I want to know how and why. What did you say to her?

"I upset her?" he stammered, the redness deepening in his already ruddy cheeks.

What did he say to you? Maggie whirled on the grandmother, who sat cross-legged on the floor, trying to calm her cat. The cat was attempting to maintain a seriously threatening hissing crouch while being dragged flat-eared and whip-tailed into the old lady’s lap.

Nothing much, dearie, replied the grandmother, pouring over her descendant a gaze of the purest molasses. He can explain to your father. Chingachgook is a trifle upset. I’ll be at my cottage if you need me. She dimpled her dried-apple cheeks at the stranger. Do sing Sir William that delightful song, young man. Ta, Granddaughter! A wave of her arm and a final whip of the cat’s tail from the crook of her other arm, and she was off.

When Maggie looked back for the stranger, she found him by the hearth, inspecting a fiddle for damage, setting it to his shoulder and lightly drawing a bow across the strings. He had slung a guitar across his back.

You’re a minstrel, then?

He had to try out several notes before answering. I’d hardly be making myself so popular with my music and all if I were a stonemason, now would I? He spoke flippantly, and Maggie thought it was to conceal the tremble in his hands as, apparently satisfied that his instruments were undamaged, he slipped fiddle and bow into a soft skin bag. Who are you? he asked, besides the relative of that witch?

You might do better with a sweeter lyric, minstrel. The one you’ve used so far today hardly seems to please, now does it? I am also Sir William’s relative, as a matter of fact. He’s my father.

The minstrel blinked twice, rapidly, as if expecting the medium-sized dusky-colored girl to be transformed into his idea of a fair and lithesome noblewoman. She continued to stare at him frankly and without noticeable approval, giving at best, in her bare feet, coarse brown tunic and skirt, and dirty white apron an impression of pleasant ordinariness dealing with momentary unpleasantness. Remembering his manners, the minstrel bowed, briefly. Colin Songsmith, Journeyman Minstrel, at your service, lady.

She had followed his inspection with one of her own as far as her own dirty feet, and now looked up from them to meet his gaze with shrewd brown eyes. You’re looking no great treat yourself. Wait a bit.

Watching her disappear through the back door, Colin sank down onto a bench that had miraculously remained upright and passed long, tired fingers over his eyes. Being changed from one thing to another, chased by witches and cats, and being changed back again was not the sort of thing his apprenticeship had prepared him for. He could make fair to middling instruments, write stirring epic sagas and set them to equally stirring and complimentary music;, play lute, zither, harp, dulcimer, pipes, and drums competently; and fiddle and guitar splendidly, if he did say so. He was quite prepared to entertain at feasts and be feted, to immortalize adventures and be considered an adventurer by association, to record history, and to have all the ladies wooing him ever so prettily for songs immortalizing their own particular charms.

But no, he had decidedly not been prepared to be one moment singing the latest southern ballad to an appreciative audience, and the next to be regarding his fiddle from a bird’s-eye view while the matronly sort who had served his cakes and ale batted at him with a broom, shrieking to her cat to come and eat him.

His training had not included lessons on maintaining his aplomb while hanging onto rafters and getting splinters in his fingers and knees, while some brown-haired young woman argued with her grey-and-brown-haired grandmother about the respectability of feeding him to the cat. The animal in question evidenced no concern whatsoever for their concerns as it lashed its wicked tail at him and licked its wicked chops.

His ruminations were interrupted by the return of the unlikely noblewoman, armed with a broom. Colin knocked over the bench he had been sitting on in his haste to escape.

Don’t be a goose, she said. I’m only going to dust you off a bit. You’re all over feathers and dust, and if you’re going to see my dad you’ll have to be somewhat more hygienic. He’s been sick, and you reek of contamination. He managed to stand still while she broomed him with brutal briskness.

* * *

After five months in bed, no amount of twisting, turning or repositioning could make Sir William quite comfortable. It wasn’t just his legs, injured when an arrow inexplicably found its way into his horse while he was hunting, causing the poor beast to rear and roll on him. Granny Brown claimed sickbed fever had prolonged his recovery far past the usual convalescent period, and lack of active use had caused his legs to weaken and his wounds to mortify, conditions she continued to fight with her entire herbal arsenal.

What he wished was that Amberwine could come home—even for a short visit. Although she had no healing magic whatsoever, and cheerfully admitted incompetence at managing even the simplest aspects of household or estate affairs, her lighthearted faery gaiety and placid, accepting intelligence brought the dimples out from under Granny Brown’s traditional witch scowls, and even slowed the brusque and practical Maggie down to something close to gentleness.

Ah well, he sighed to himself, arranging his bedclothes in a position suitable for the company whose footsteps he heard climbing the long spiral staircase to his tower chamber. He’d made Amberwine the best possible marriage to that southern lord—the fellow might even get to be king, they said, and she seemed to like him in the bargain. Where he’d find such a match for thorny Maggie was more than a sick man should contemplate. It was complicated arranging marriages for not-quite-born-in-wedlock children one acknowledged belatedly. The village witch’s daughter, who at the age of two years is declared to be the daughter of the Lord-High-Mayor-Knight-Protector-of-His-Majesty’s-Northern-Territories (And Incorporated Villages), tends to remain the village witch’s daughter. No amount of equal education or advantage seemed to be able to make a witchchild as refined a lady as her faery sister. For all of Amberwine’s extra encouragement and coaching, Maggie remained neither fish nor fowl, her mother’s line too base for nobles, her father’s too noble for the base-born lads. Too bad she wasn’t a son, so all he’d have to do would be to leave her the estate, which she managed most capably, and find her a wife. Worthy wives were bound to be more common commodities than worthy husbands, he felt sure.

To the poundings on his chamber door he called permission to enter, and a disheveled Maggie did so, followed by an only slightly less disheveled young man.

Hullo, Dad. She dropped a kiss on his forehead.

’Lo, Magpie. Who’s this? He made an attempt at hearty cheerfulness in the direction of the young man.

I caught Granny trying to feed him to Ching, she replied. She was in a dreadful huff.

Sir William narrowed his eyes at the young man. What did you do to cause my mother-in-law to wish to make cat food of you, sir?

Your pardon, noble sir. The young man made him a low bow. Colin Songsmith, Journeyman Minstrel, at your service. Noble sir, I don’t know why the lady was so vexed with me. I only sang the latest southern ditty for her, practicing it, y’know, before presenting it to you.

Present it to me then, dammit, and let’s get to the bottom of this. Maggie, dear, do scratch my shoulder—ah, right there—good girl.

Since his fiddle rendition of the tune had met with such avian results, Colin unslung his guitar from his back and tuned it. The tuning gave him time to compose himself. Finally he tapped his fingers on the soundboard of the guitar and told them, Not being from this district, or the one where the song originates, I can’t understand the fuss over it. I learned it from Minstrel Giles. He said he always comes north this time of year to avoid the first blossom of some of the southern plants. Gives him ill humors of the nose and throat, he says, and, as you well may imagine that’s an unhandy affliction for a troubadour. He paused to allow this professional confidence to sink in. Maggie nodded briskly that she was perfectly capable of understanding occupational hazards, and the old man impatiently waved him to continue. Ahem—yes, as I was saying, folk down south at least, find this an entertaining tune. Giles says it’s all the rage. He paused again for dramatic emphasis before striking the strings in a minor key. The guitar sent ripples of sobbing across the room once, twice, and once again.

The minstrel’s features coarsened and his voice dropped to a lower register. The guitar was a stone fence he leaned upon as he confided ribald gossip to another peasant. The music galloped along in time to his voice.

"The gypsy Davey came riding along,

Singing so loud and gaily.

He sang so sweet and so complete,

Down come our faery lady… down come the faery maid.

"She come trippin’ down the stairs

Her maids were all before her

As soon’s he saw her pretty face

He cast some glamourie o’er her."

Sir William opened his eyes. A gypsy man had wreaked a great deal of havoc in the village two festival seasons ago by absconding simultaneously with two of the estate’s dairy maids, sisters whose soiled state Sir William had had to launder with generous donations to their dowries so they could be safely wed before they whelped. If the fella’d charmed a faery he must be quite the charmer indeed—the faeries were so enchanting themselves, they generally saw through the glamourie of others.

The minstrel dropped the peasant role and became the gypsy, insinuating himself into the lady’s romantic imagination. Casting Maggie as the lady, his passionate glances totally confused the expression of polite attention she had maintained. Trying to stare down the minstrel’s false gypsy as she would her grandmother’s cat, she found herself annoyed that she was unable to look away when she wished.

"Will you forsake your husband dear,

And all the wealth he gave ye?

Will you leave your house and lands

To follow Gypsy Davey—to ride with the Gypsy Dave?

Maggie flushed, her dark skin burgundy with befuddlement as the minstrel released her eyes to become narrator again.

"She dressed herself in her gay green cloak

And her boots of finest leather,

Then mounted on her pony fine,

And they rode off together.

"Late from huntin’ came Lord Rowan,

Asking for his lady.

The one did cry and the other reply

‘She’s gone with the Gypsy Davey—rode away with the Gypsy Dave.’"

Intricate minor patterns wove through the main theme, invoking hoofbeats fading away from the lady’s fine home across the moors. The minstrel didn’t look up from the guitar again until the last keening notes quivered off his strings to die in the stillness around him. Sir William’s face was a most alarmingly unhealthy eggplant color, and the resemblance between Maggie and her grandmother was suddenly uncomfortably apparent.

Well, Dad, she smiled around sharp white teeth, What d’you think? Boil him in oil, or flay him alive?

What had Colin’s masters taught him at the academy? In dealings with aristocrats, when in doubt, grovel. He knelt so fast he banged his knee on the floor. Your pardon, m’lady, Sir William. I only did as you asked. I meant no offense, and can’t think why the tune has given it. I’ll never play it again—ever. In your vicinity, at least, he added to himself, searching for an exit as Sir William’s skin regained its former pallor.

Perhaps you should choose less exotic material in the future, lad, the old knight advised drily, or not mention names in your ditties. The Lord Rowan cuckolded in your song, unless of course there’s another one, is my son-in-law, married to my younger daughter, the Lady Amberwine.

Colin gulped, his eyes darting furtively to the leaded glass window and back to the long flight of stone steps they’d mounted coming to the tower room.

"Who was this fellow with the stuffy nose who taught you that song?" Maggie asked.

Minstrel Giles, m’lady?

I was wondering if he’d like that nose removed?

Maggie! snapped Sir William, You’re scaring the lad to death, you little heathen. He said it wasn’t his song. He turned more kindly to the minstrel, who by now was perspiring profusely. Sorry, son. He jerked a thumb at his glowering daughter. She’s a terrific girl, really, just awfully fond of her sister, as we all are around here. He shook his head. I don’t understand this at all. Winnie—Lady Amberwine—is not at all your average running-off sort of girl. She’s too considerate for that type of thing. To just leave without explanation! No letter to us! Even if she didn’t like her husband, which I could have sworn she did, she’d hardly have placed her family in such an awkward spot without giving us fair warning—

Fine lady, indeed, noble sir, the minstrel agreed emphatically, "I’m sure she’s a fine, fine lady."

Too right, she is that. Sir William’s hands tortured the bedclothes for a few moments before he turned his baffled and miserable face to Maggie.

She leaned down and hugged him. Aw, Dad, of course she is. She wouldn’t just go gallivanting off with the first passing gypsy—you know very well she can hardly decide which gown to wear to breakfast in the morning without consulting every servant in the house, and me and Gran besides. She certainly wouldn’t be able to bolt altogether on the spur of the moment like that! It’d take her a week to pack! She glared again at the cowering Colin. Must have been one of His Lordship’s enemies paid that Giles fellow to make up that awful song.

Colin gulped and waggled a tentative index finger for attention. Begging your ladyship’s pardon, he began, not really wishing to call notice to himself again, but equally reluctant for Giles to suffer the consequences of his own silence. Giles confessed that he only gave the tune a bit of a polish—it was actually a popular creation.

Common gossip music, then, eh? Sir William looked even older and sicker than he had looked when Colin came into the room, and he had appeared twenty hard years older than Maggie’s grandmother then. Maggie, what can be going on with the girl?

Maggie looked down, shoving her fists deep into her apron pockets. I don’t know, Dad.

You remember that nasty gypsy fella running off with Mullaly’s daughters and nearly emptying my wallet trying to save their foolish reputations?

Yes, Dad, I remember. Betsy and Beatrice Mullaly are as bovine as their charges, though. Everybody knows that. Winnie’s got more sense.

I think so. I don’t know. I wish I had my legs under me, so I could go see Rowan and talk to him myself. He made an impatient attempt to rise. Maggie gently pushed him back onto the bed.

That’s no good, and you know it. I’ll go talk to Rowan.

The old man looked at her for a long time, then closed his eyes and sank back against his pillow. Of course you will, lass. You’re the only one who can, I suppose. Then opening one eye he looked at her again, more sharply. You’re not thinking of going alone, of course?

She shrugged. Why not? We can’t have it all over the territories what I’m up to if there’s nothing in it. I’ll be all right. I’ve got my magic to protect me, after all.

He snorted. Hearthcraft, hmph. All very well for running the castle or tavern, but what are you going to do if you meet a bear, girl.

Very well, then, she conceded, trying not to allow their disagreement to tire her father any further. I’ll take the mockingbird, here, with me.

The pronouncement came as a complete surprise to Colin.

Sir William peered closely at him. "Oh, then if a bear comes along HE sings the creature sweetly to sleep with a bloody lullaby, and you turn it into a